Screening Log

This new site feature is a collective effort to summarize our viewing habits. Occasionally, you will find titles here that are coming to a theater near you, in addition to films viewed on television, and even films viewed in piecemeal. The screening log is archived each month; to view past entries select a month in the menu below.

April 2007 activity

Total Log Entries: 50

Total Comments: 20

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The Philadelphia Story / USA / 1940

I don’t quite agree with Ian’s take on The Philadelphia Story, but it’s clear that it’s an altogether different film from Bringing Up Baby. Hepburn’s pursuit of Grant in the earlier film was aggressive (even feral?), but far too bumbling to seem masculine (at least to contemporary eyes); and Hepburn’s much skirted-around divorce from Grant’s upper class roué never seems like anything less than a necessary separation. The Philadelphia Story spends much time peeling off layers of Hepburn’s sense of certainty, and while this definitely treads closely to patriarchal defensiveness, it should be noted that the men in the film are rarely admirable. A reformed drunk, a social climber, a cynic, a pincher, and an adulterer (who presents the most frighteningly patriarchal, if beautifully worded, attempt to tame his daughter into submission and compliance) comprise a picture of masculinity that is effete at all social levels. And it is only those two — Grant and Stewart — who accept and do not try to conceal their vulnerability that can possibly be worthy of Hepburn, a woman who must learn, she is repeatedly told, to accept the vulnerability of others.

Still, this is quite a mouthful, and it can only seem slow, stagebound, and over-serious when compared to its hyperactive predecessor.

Matt’s review

by Leo Goldsmith | Source: Warner Bros. DVD
23 Apr 2007 6:27 PM | Submit Comment

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